Posted on 01/14/2013 5:37:15 PM PST by BenLurkin
The works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth are "rocket-boosters" to the brain and better therapy than self-help books, researchers have claimed.
Scientists, psychologists and English academics at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of the Bard and other classical writers has a beneficial effect on the mind, catches the reader's attention and triggers moments of self-reflection, the Telegraph reported.
Using scanners, they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read works by William ShakespeareWilliam Wordsworth, T.S Eliot and others.
They then "translated" the texts into more "straightforward", modern language and again monitored the readers' brains as they read the words.
Scans showed that the more "challenging" prose and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the more pedestrian versions.
Scientists were able to study the brain activity as it responded to each word and record how it "lit up" as the readers encountered unusual words, surprising phrases or difficult sentence structure.
This "lighting up" of the mind lasts longer than the initial electrical spark, shifting the brain to a higher gear, encouraging further reading.
I would personally recommend the works of Edmund Spenser, which will not only exercise your brain but teach you how to be a brave and honorable knight. What more could you want, nowadays?
Is there a link to this article?
Edmund Burke and Adam Smith work very well.
However I do think the poetic has muscle matter exercise that is wonderful.
That is the reason those authors/materials are known as The Classics.
Those who fail to study the classics turn into low information voters.
I used to keep a notebook listing the new words I learned watching Firing line and would practice them by pretending to debate Mr.Buckley.
Sesquipedalian was one of my favorite words, followed by the phrase sonorously bromide, for no particular reason, just because.
I can believe this. You truly have to THINK when reading Shakespeare!
Telegram to WFB from the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
“Dear Bill, just what the hell does `immanentize the eschaton’ mean?”
;^)
Being cultured does not mean to read in order to boost your brain rocket, or however you put it. Our thirst for knowledge and preference for higher forms of entertainment is not pragmatic nor instrumental. It isn’t disinterested, either. But show me a person who goes to Shakespeare like others take gingko biloba and I will show you someone who won’t end up reading much, let alone understanding.
Edward de Vere to Encyclopedia Britannica... my dear perfidious albion,
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
or something to that effect ;-)
The “eschaton” is the end times. “Immanence” is God’s real presence in this world. To immanentize the eschaton is to bring about the end times in the here and now.
It is most aptly applied to millenarians, like the heretics of the Middle Ages described in Norman Cohn’s “The Pursuit of the Millenium.” The phrase was popularized by conservative American philosopher Eric Voegelin in books like “The New Science of Politics.” He sees gnostics (or “knowers,” meaning those aware of God’s presence in the world, and as opposed to agnostics) as forerunners of modern utopian revolutionaries, for instance Marx.
I recall cutting my teeth on the notion of Conservitism and watching Firing Line with a legal pad ‘n pen writing down the words I had NEVER heard used before. Then I had to look up the words in a dictionary [gasp!]....which were often spelled incorrectly, which made it doubly hard. LOL
WFB was exciting and fun to watch him slice and dice Gore Vidal to ribbons. He and Bill Safire are missed. Greatly missed.
Thanks. I’m sending this to my 99 year old mom — big Shakespeare fan.
Thanks. I’m sending this to my 99 year old mom — big Shakespeare fan.
As a yewt, I fancied myself as a liberal before I understood what a classic liberal was and I thought the show was fixed, because whenever WFB debated some duffus on TV who represented the left, I figured that he chose the worst representative to debate just to make himself look good. Little did I know he was actually winning me over and converting me to conservatism.
I heard G. Gordon Liddy tell someone who wanted to become more intelligent without going to college, what books he recommended. He said the best investment would be to read The Harvard Classics. I found a complete set at an antique store and am progressing through them. Albeit, slowly.
As a product of a Parochial school education, my *mush* brain was filled with do-good social causes to promote and support. In undergrad school, we attended lectures by Ceasar Chavez, and I was so moved by the plight of the migrant worker. But none of it seemed right in my head. Then along can Barry Goldwater and WFB, and I was swayed by their speeches and writings. On my meager savings, as most broke college students, I scrapped enough together to subscribe to the National Review. Then a light went on, I recall attending a series of debates between the incredible Rev Billy Graham and radical Mario Savio [Berkeley Free Speech Movement] at MIT....Rev. Graham chewing Savio up and spit him out. That was the end of liberalism for me. And I'll bet I was the only *Goldwater Girl* handing out campaign literature on the liberal streets of Boston.
I am grateful for the strong classical education of the Sisters of Notre Dame and Jesuits. Fortunately, they and my parents, taught us to *think*. ;)
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